It seemed as if Illinois-Chicago would prevent Marquette from winning its first match of the season after freshman Mark Rutherford dropped his first set at No. 3 singles 6-0, but head coach Steve Rodecap was there to reassure him.
"I said, 'Mark, we're not out of this match, it's best of three and we've just got to stay around and try to put ourselves in a position to win," Rodecap said.
"And to his credit, he did a really good job turning around the momentum."
Rutherford won the next two sets 6-4 and 6-0 to defeat Illinois-Chicago's Bastian Harbo and clinch the 4-3 victory for the Golden Eagles Saturday at the Helfaer Rec Center.
Marquette (1-1) dropped the doubles point to start the match. Only the No. 1 tandem of junior Brett Binkley and Rutherford won, defeating UIC's Adriano Licardo and Harbo 8-6.
As singles play continued, things got worse for the Golden Eagles.
Sophomore Stephen Shao lost 6-4, 6-4 to Sebastian Lystad at No. 2, and UIC's Eric Fey defeated Binkley at No. 4, 7-6, 6-4, to put Chicago up 3-0 in the match.
Junior Greg Sirotek gave the Golden Eagles their first point, defeating Sam Sweeney 6-4, 6-3 at No. 6, and sophomore Trent Hagan followed suit by beating Licardo 6-3, 6-4 at No. 1.
"We needed to stay intense out there in singles, and coming out strong and getting off the court relatively quickly helps the other guys by seeing they have a match under their belt," Hagan said.
Seeing that they had a chance at winning the match, Marquette's freshmen came through.
Niko Bouleris defeated Andy Lockhart 6-3, 5-7, 6-3 at No. 5 before Rutherford closed out the victory.
"That was probably the most fun singles match I've ever played," Rutherford said.
Women go 1-2 over the weekend
After a couple of close losses earlier in the weekend, the women's tennis team was facing the prospect of an 0-4 start entering its Sunday afternoon match against Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
"We had opportunities to win," said Marquette head coach Jody Bronson. "We have to step up and do that. We can't just be close – we're not satisfied with that."
The team embodied this spirit by defeating UWM 6-1 for the Golden Eagles' first win of the season. The victory came after a pair of 4-3 defeats to No. 36 Iowa on Sunday morning and Louisville on Friday.
Sara Martinez of the Tribune staff contributed to this report.